


Let Me See

by compo67



Series: Punzel Verse [18]
Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Children, Established Jensen Ackles/Jared Padalecki, Family, Family Feels, Gen, M/M, POV Jensen Ackles, Parenthood, Siblings, Timestamp
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-17
Updated: 2015-04-17
Packaged: 2018-03-23 08:13:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3761104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/compo67/pseuds/compo67
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tristan takes Jensen to a place in Santa Monica he's never been before. Their conversation is not what Jensen expects.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Let Me See

**Author's Note:**

> Poem #26 by bell hooks, "When Angels Speak of Love."

Tristan drives a moped.

He hands Jensen a helmet despite Jensen’s vocal doubt that they will have a serious accident going ten miles an hour. Clicking his helmet on, Tristan gives a very simple response.

“Get on, dad.”

 

Lunch is not at a restaurant.

It is at a hospital.

“Hospice,” Tristan clarifies, parking his moped. “This is the end of the line.”

The white and silver building is modern and stately, having been recently updated. It sits on the coastline, with floor to ceiling windows facing the Pacific Ocean. A narrow, wooden boardwalk stretches from the back of the building to the beach. Eventually, the planks become nothing but sweeping expanses of sand and tide.

Jensen always wondered what this place was.

At the private gate, accessible only by keycard and monitored by security guards, Tristan reached into his trumpet case. He handed over one of those cards. Now, on the beach, Tristan takes off his sneakers, pitching them somewhere in the sand. They land with a soft thud.

Tristan has always been vastly different from Jared. Jensen could tell it from the first time he stared at him, perplexed, for ten minutes outside of Storybook.

There is no roundness to Tristan’s hips or soft curve to his chest. Tristan has always been leaner; he is sharper, the angles to his face more prominent. And still, his resting face maintains a sort of scowl.  

In fluid movements, Tristan plops down in the sand, looking out at the body water before them. The skyline is infinite here. Tristan draws his knees up to his chin.

“Kaylee sits like that,” Jensen murmurs, setting his guitar case down on the sand. He doesn’t lose his shoes, but he does take a seat next to Tristan. “Gets the same face you have right now. Like…” he takes a deep breath and rests his wrists over his knees. “She’s got the weight of the world on her shoulders.”

This part of the coast is calm. There are no beach parties, no cookouts, no volleyball nets, not even any hipster surfers pretending to know what they’re doing.

All there is, is all there is.

Water curls out to them in foamy tendrils. A piece of hair sneaks away from behind Tristan’s ear. He keeps most of it pulled back with a black hair tie. For a minute, Jensen wants to tell him that yesterday, Jared walked all over the house wearing a neon pink scrunchy because it’s all he could find. Misha insisted he add some cupcake barrettes to complete the look. When Jeff got home, the situation escalated, and Jensen found them all—children and adults—in the kitchen playing hairdresser.

This morning, Jensen left their bed earlier than usual to meet Ken for a walk around the park—a ritual between the two of them. Before prying himself away, Jensen found a roller still lodged in Jared’s hair. He took it out carefully, and brushed back a stray strand, moving it away from Jared’s face.

He let Jared keep sleeping. But he carried that instinctive motion with him for the rest of the day.

It might be odd if Jensen reached over and did the same to Tristan.

They sit in silence for a good fifteen minutes.

The springtime sun doesn’t shine down too harsh. It warms up the air little by little instead of all at once.

“You gonna tell me something?” Jensen prompts gently, looking over. “Why we’re here?”

From the little Jensen knows about Tristan, he has always been the quieter sibling. Except for when he was banging holes through apartment walls, a trait that followed from Texas to California. But Jensen thinks now that it wasn’t easy being the first to leave that shithole in Texas; loneliness sunk deep.

People do crazy shit when they’re lonely.

Jensen would know. He filled out an application to Disneyland.

Their shirts billow as a breeze pushes through; it muscles its way along the coast, up and up until it might just reach Alaska. The kids have started asking weather related questions. Jensen fell asleep during most of his science courses in high school, though he can answer his share about plants and flowers. Usually, though, the trio wants to know _why_.

Why is the sky blue? Why is sand rough? Why is mommy’s hair darker than daddy’s hair? Why can Mimi turn on the stove, but Papa always has to try three times? Why does toast burn?  

Jensen is afraid to ask one question to Tristan.

Hospice—end of the line.

He isn’t bothered by the time Tristan has spent away from them. Nor is he bothered by the life Tristan used to lead or leads now. From what Jensen has heard, Tristan shows up to work at Freddy’s consistently and on time. He keeps to himself, but that doesn’t mean much coming from Freddy. Anyone who doesn’t talk a mile a minute is considered shy in Freddy’s book. Jensen didn’t continue to pry about the details of Jared’s brother; he figured he’d find out soon enough.

Santa Monica is only so big.

The only thing that bothers Jensen is the knowledge that whatever Tristan is going through, he’s been facing it alone for a long time.

“My brother,” Tristan exhales, “can be really intimidating.”

At first, Jensen disagrees, but he takes a second to think it through. Jared is an extrovert. He enjoys company, and conversation doesn’t drain him the way it does for Jensen.

Sunlight makes the hairs on Jensen’s arms lighter and his freckles darker.

Agreeing, Jensen nods. “Yeah. He can be.”

Sunlight adds a darker tint to the stubble on Tristan’s face. He’s a handful of minutes older than Jared, but he looks Jensen’s age. In this light, Jensen can see the lines on his face, bags under his eyes, and thinness to his hair.

Texas lies out over sand, thick and unmasked. “I started playin’ in school. Ma made me. Said music would keep my hands busy and the devil away. Music,” he snorts, “is the Lord’s work.”

Patient, Jensen nods again.

This sun is the same sun in Texas.

Tristan doesn’t speak for another minute.

When he does, his voice is heavy. He keeps the distance between himself and Jensen permanent, never swaying closer. Though, Jensen notices, he never sways away, either.

From his pocket, Tristan digs out the keycard. He holds it up and passes it over to Jensen.

On the front, in black letters, it says VISITOR.

“I visit and I play,” Tristan exhales, his shoulders shaking. “I play for anyone who wants it. I don’t… I don’t believe that line of shit. I don’t know if music is the Lord’s work or whatever bullshit my parents said about it. And… I’m not gonna feed you some line about how I saw God and He told me to… to come out here.” That last part is laced with ex-Southern Baptist bitterness.

Unsure of himself, Tristan runs a hair through his hair. The hair tie slips over his wrist.

His chest rises as he inhales.

He lets out his breath slow and steady.

“I’m HIV positive.”

It doesn’t take a single word for Jensen to understand that this is between them.

Whatever truths, facts, and confessions shared here will stay here with the sand and tide. Another breeze rallies through, stronger this time, but it doesn’t carry off what Tristan shared, not a word.

They won’t talk much today.

But Tristan will continue to surprise Jensen, though in this instance, the trumpet remains in its case.

A few words in and Jensen knows the poem. Tristan’s drawl lingers and adds a smoothness to the words like the tide polishes over pebbles in the sand.

“Let me be a witness to love. Stand on the outside and see tenderness unbidden. Kind words. And a lover’s sweet touch. Let me be a witness to love. See each sacrifice surrendered, how patient and joined such open heart.”

He makes eye contact with Jensen.

The girls have Jared’s hazel eyes; those eyes are these eyes.

“Let me see, and then believe.”

 

Ten minutes later, still sitting side by side, Tristan speaks again.

His voice breaks in the whisper of his question.

“D-do you… do you have pictures?”

On the beach, Jensen takes out his wallet.

**Author's Note:**

> /sniffs/ 
> 
> oh, this fic. i struggled writing this. i had a million possibilities and in the end, i loved this one the best. i hope you enjoy this. 
> 
> i didn't want an overly-dramatic reveal. so i hope this is still weighty enough to have an impact. it's also tough tagging this since i don't want to spoil anything. 
> 
> comments would be adored, thank you y'all for reading.


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